If you ever spent some time playing "Tiddlywinks" you
might have noticed that you could use real coins instead
of
those plastic discs. You also know that you use one disc
to manipulate the others; this disc is apparently known
as a "squidger" (see link).

Now imagine walking along, and you
see a coin on the
ground. You might pick it up, except that you see,
egad!, that it is "tails" side up, not "heads" side up. For
some reason a lot of folks consider it to be unlucky, and
they pass the coin by.

No more! With the Long Coin-Squidger, which
conveniently telescopes (and collapses to fit in a
pocket), or (sold separately) can be an attachment to an
existing long item such as a cane or shilelagh, you simply
squidge the coin until the "heads" side is up. NOW you
can
claim the coin!

Isn't the luck in the spontaneous discovery of a heads-up
coin? This seems a lot like a method for manufacturing
luck, which like building a perpetual motion machine or
changing the value of pi is one of Nature's rare
impossibilities.

In Iceland it's considered bad luck to pick up a coin if
it's _heads_ up. The simple solution, therefore, is to
arrange a database of found coins and, periodically,
arrange exchange visits with Icelanders.